


when it rains, it pours

by Meanderfall



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Fluff and Angst, Jack-Centric, M/M, either way have this, i might explore gabriel's side of this maybe, or just do a fic about them getting back together, skips over some things but this is a 5 + 1 fic not a 500 + 1, spans the entirety of their relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 09:56:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11826324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meanderfall/pseuds/Meanderfall
Summary: So Jack watches Gabriel go and does nothing. He can feel the tears threatening to well up, but he blinks them back and focuses on his work again. Gabriel is, as always, right; they both have more important work to get to.(Five times Jack refused to cry and the one time he had to.)





	when it rains, it pours

**1\. A bad trip I couldn’t get off**

The pain coursing through his body is beyond agonizing. Everything hurts and aches beyond what mere words could describe. Jack would try to shift and hopefully find a better position, but he’s honestly scared of how much it will hurt. He can barely manage to bear it when he’s still, what would happen if he moves? The pain pulses and moves throughout his body, slowly stabbing its way down his arms, into his fingertips until he wants nothing more than to tear them off. He’s not sure he can even move his legs; they feel like nothing but solid planks of cramps. But the worst is when the pain works its way up his torso, into his heart. He can _feel_ his heart stutter, stop and start again; every beat feels like a monumental task, and he’s not sure how it hasn’t given up yet.

A nurse (who hadn’t administered the Soldier Enhancement Drug, but he can’t help but irrationally despise for what’s happening) gently pats him on the leg as he passes by, likely trying to comfort Jack, but it instead sends white-hot fire scourging up his leg, and he bites his lip so hard it bleeds to keep from crying out.

He refuses to cry. He asked for it, signed up for it, and he will not ever show any kind of weakness because of it.

And if the man next to him, Gabriel Reyes, can sit through it in stoic silence, so can Jack.

 

**2\. I’ll be yours**

Jack can barely get the words “Will you marry me?” out before Gabe sweeps him into his arm and croaks out a “yes” into the crook of his neck. Jack easily wraps his arms around Gabe, and holds him like he is the most precious thing in his world (which he is). Jack is grinning so wide, his face hurts, but he can’t help it; he’s been dreaming of this moment for so long, months and years. During the nights in the harshest part of the war, when he wasn’t sure they would make it through and every injury seemed fatal, the thought of marrying this man gave him hope to see a better day. During the days when he wasn’t sure he could continue one more step and wanted nothing more than to lie down and never get up again, the thought of this moment gave him the courage to keep moving and to continue fighting.

It feels like his entire life has been leading up to this moment, and he can’t help but let his sheer joy bubble out of his chest. His laughter rings loud and clear and Gabriel joins in a few seconds later, even lifts him up and twirls around. It’s ridiculously embarrassing and sappy, but he doesn’t care at all.

And at least he isn’t crying like Gabriel is.

 

**3\. Maybe I bit off more than I could chew**

 “We’re done, Jack. We both have more important things to take care of anyway, don’t we?”

Jack wishes that the words were spat out or sneered, anything to make it easier to be angry or insulted, to make it easier to swallow the hurt and guilt. Instead, the words are soft and beyond tired, and he didn’t know what it was like to have your entire world shattered at your feet and have it be your fault, but he does now, and he’s not sure how to live with it.

Gabriel leaves his office, closes the door softly, and Jack knows he should get up and go to him, ask him ‘why’, beg him for a chance to fix it. Except. He’s so tired. The weight of Overwatch and all the lives it’s responsible for rests too heavily on his shoulders. He can barely keep them straight and proud most days. He can’t do it. He can’t bring himself to try and fix his relationship, not when he is still trying to fix Overwatch.

So Jack watches Gabriel go and does nothing. He can feel the tears threatening to well up, but he blinks them back and focuses on his work again. Gabriel is, as always, right; they both have more important work to get to.

 

**4\. Black banners raised as the crooked smile fades**

 Jack once thought he knew what it was like to have everything he worked for shattered by his own hand.

How fucking naïve.

Overwatch has literally been blown apart and Gabe is _dead_. Crushed underneath the rubble before he ever got the chance to explain what he was doing in Jack’s office, before he had managed to outline the extent of the parasite that had been sinking its teeth into the organization.  
He’d been so fucking blind. He might as well had pulled the trigger and killed Gabriel himself.

He wishes he could spend time grieving for everything he has lost, but if he stops now, he isn’t sure he could ever get back up again. So ignores the pinprick of tears in his eyes and goes on the hunt. Maybe he can do one last and good thing with his life.

 

**5\. And in the end, I’d do it all again**

Jack is actually huffing for breath and his legs are aching. He hasn’t been this tested physically since the omnics, but his prey is putting up one hell of a chase. (He ignores that his body has been aching for years now. Pretends like he hasn’t been perpetually exhausted for years now, ever since Overwatch first started to slowly fall apart.)

He turns left out of the alley into a city square only to stop. Reaper, his owl mask glinting in the moonlight, has stopped and is looking at him. Waiting.

Jack ducks back into the alley and aims his gun.

“You can stop that, Jack. I have no intention of fighting you.” Reaper’s voice is a deep and rough growl, not nearly as bad as his own, but enough that it must hurt his throat to speak. Jack tightens his grip on his gun. “How do you know who I am?” he demands, voice even harsher.

Reaper dissolves into smoke and Jack shoots into it, but it has no effect. Jack curses to himself, watching as Reaper fades into the shadows once again. It’s fine though; Jack can locate him once he reforms. He knows Reaper can’t stay in this form for a long enough distance to escape. He just needs to wait.

Arms wrap around his own, holding him in an iron grip. “Do you not recognize me, my love? I knew who you were instantly. And I wasn’t the one who had changed all that much,” Reaper’s voice practically purrs into his ear, his mask digging into his shoulder.

Jack knows he should try to struggle, to break free from his grasp, but he’s still trying to make sense of what he’s just said.

“Gabe?” he chokes out, and he can’t believe it, he can’t, because if that was true…

“I knew you weren’t nearly as dumb as you pretend to be.”

If it were true, then Jack had left Gabriel behind, _alive_ , underneath all that rock.

Jack finally finds the will to turn, to try and see him, but Reaper dissolves once again.

“Gabriel? Gabriel, please…” he rasps, far too many emotions weighing him down.

“Sorry, Jack. But we both have more important business to take care of, instead of standing around chatting,” are Reaper’s parting words, an awful echo of his words when they broke up, and Jack’s ears are ringing, he can’t…

There’s something building in the back of his throat, a sob, a scream, but he can’t even manage to release a choked off sound, and he wants to cry, can feel the pressure building, but it’s been so long it’s like he has forgotten how to.

An awful, unnamed emotion claws at his chest, and he doesn’t know how to release it.

That’s fine though. He has always been a man of action. And Gabriel was right of course. They both have important business to take care; and if talking, saving Gabriel, has been added to his list of Important Business, well that’s no one’s problem but his own.

 

**+1. Fall to your knees, bring on the rapture**

 Jack gasps awake. He doesn’t focus on his surroundings, he can’t, not when his eyes are desperately searching for the one thing he _needs_.

He finds Gabriel sleeping peacefully next to him, alive and well, and though the panic dies down, the fear and pain doesn’t.

Gabriel’s expression is so soft in the early morning light and it’s so different from the one in his dream. That one was twisted and hateful as blood ran down his face while slowly being crushed by rocks. He had reached out to Jack, clawing towards him, before a final boulder made him disappear from sight.

Jack turns onto his side towards Gabe and reaches out to softly cup his face. His fingers are trembling, but that’s fine, Gabriel steadies them _(Gabriel has always been his solid ground)_.

He drinks in Gabriel’s face, committing it to memory, but it doesn’t _feel_ real, and Jack finds himself slowly tracing Gabe’s features with shaking fingers. The old scars that he knew better than his own, and the new ones, no doubt done during the explosion _(his fault, his fault, Gabe could’ve died, did die, it’s his fault)_. Moves his fingers down the bridge of his nose to his lips, and feels his warm breaths. Places a kiss on his forehead and stays there for a moment, eyes closed and trying to commit everything to memory. This, of course, wakes Gabriel up; he can feel his eyes flutter open, is achingly aware of the pause as he takes the situation in before Gabe pulls back to look at him. Jack has no idea what Gabe can see in his expression with his bleary eyes, but it’s apparently enough for him to try to blink away any sleepiness and ask “Jack? What’s wrong?”

He doesn’t know why, if it’s just the sheer amount of concern in Gabe’s voice, something he never thought he would ever hear again, or a combination of having Gabe back in his life and finally being freed of most of his responsibilities, the joy and relief mixing together until he needs to let it go somehow, but decades of tears finally well up and spill over.

“Gabe…!” he sobs, and buries his face in Gabriel’s chest.

Gabriel’s arms wrap around him, comforting and warm, solid and _real_. Gabriel’s hand slowly rubs up and down his back, and he might be whispering things to him, but Jack can’t hear it over his own litany.

“I’m sorry, Gabe, I’m so sorry, I love you, please, please don’t ever go, please, I can’t go on without you, please Gabe, I’m sorry, believe me…” and on and on, and barely intelligible to even Jack, undercut as it is with gasps and heaving sobs.

It goes on for a long time. It’s far too many years of pent-up emotion finally being released, but Jack quiets eventually, and he feels _better_. In the warm and protective circle of Gabe’s arms as he whispers comforting nonsense to him, Jack finally feels at peace.

He feels happy.


End file.
